Search the Dictionary

of being held, naintained, or defended, as against an assailant or objector, or againts attempts to take or process; as, a tenable fortress, a tenable argument. If you have hitherto concealed his sight, Let it be tenable in your silence still. Shak. I would be the last man in the world to give up his cause when it was…

ionable. Sir T. Browne. The religious tenets of his family he had early renounced with contempt. Macaulay.

Trial; temptation. [Obs.] Sir T. Browne.

ive or slighted object; any object viewed as merely existing; -- often used in pity or contempt. See, sons, what things you are! Shak. The poor thing sighed, and . . . turned from me. Addison. I'll be this abject thing no more. Granville. I have a thing in prose. Swift.

To address as thou, esp. to do so in order to treat with insolent familiarity or contempt. If thou thouest him some thrice, it shall not be amiss. Shak.

To utter threats against; to menace; to inspire with apprehension; to alarm, or attempt to alarm, as with the promise of something evil or disagreeable; to warn. Let us straitly threaten them, that they speak henceforth to no man in this name. Acts iv. 17.

A word of unknown origin and signification, formerly used as expressive of contempt, or when anything said was reject as trifling or impertinent. [Written also tille-vally, tilly-fally, tille-fally, and otherwise.] Shak.

A woman; -- used in contempt. Burton.

Moderately good or agreeable; not contemptible; not very excellent or pleasing, but such as can be borne or received without disgust, resentment, or opposition; passable; as, a tolerable administration; a tolerable entertainment; a tolerable translation. Dryden. -- Tol"er*a*ble*ness, n. -- Tol"er*a*bly, adv.…

Tossing the head, as in scorn or pride; hence, proud; contemptuous; scornful; affectedly indifferent; as, a tossy commonplace. [R.] C. Kingsley.

To expose to contempt or shame; to represent as blamable; to calumniate; to vilify; to defame. The best stratagem that Satan hath . . . is by traducing the form and manner of them [prayers], to bring them into contempt. Hooker. He had the baseness . . . to traduce me in libel. Dryden.

Fig.: To treat with contempt and insult. Cowper.

A transcriber; -- used in contempt. He [Aristotle] has suffered vastly from the transcribblers, as all authors of great brevity necessarily must. Gray.

of metals (Alchem.), the conversion of base metals into gold or silver, a process often attempted by the alchemists. See Alchemy, and Philosopher's stone, under Philosopher.

irds, esp. the males. Shak. To tread on or upon. (a) To trample; to set the foot on in contempt. "Thou shalt tread upon their high places." Deut. xxxiii. 29. (b) to follow closely. "Year treads on year." Wordsworth. -- To tread upon the heels of, to follow close upon. "Dreadful consequences that tread upon the heels o…

The offense of attempting to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance, or of betraying the state into the hands of a foreign power; disloyalty; treachery. The treason of the murthering in the bed. Chaucer.

The state of being tried or tempted; exposure to suffering that tests strength, patience, faith, or the like; affliction or temptation that exercises and proves the graces or virtues of men. Others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings. Heb. xi. 36.

the oppression of the patricians, or nobles, and to defend their liberties against any attempts that might be made upon them by the senate and consuls.

The entrails; hence, humorously or in contempt, the belly; -- generally used in the plural. Howell.

To essay; to attempt; to endeavor. Let us try . . . to found a path. Milton. To try on. (a) To put on, as a garment, to ascertain whether it fits the person. (b) To attempt; to undertake. [Slang] Dickens.